CNY teens have a club they can bank on in The Vault

Jim Commentucci / The Post-StandardBaldwinsville high school students Mike Leija, 15, a freshman, and Nate Russell, 18, a senior (right), hang out at the Vault teen night club Friday night in Baldwinsville.

The Vault

What: Central New York's newest nightclub exclusively for teensWhere: 36 Oswego St., BaldwinsvilleWhen: It's open from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and SaturdaysCost: $10Details: The club is for those age 16 to 19 only and ID is required. The club's dress code prohibits excessively baggy or revealing clothes.More information: The Vault is on Facebook and MySpace and it has its own Web site.

The newest nightclub in Central New York has the look -- walls painted black, fog machine pumping, colored lights shaking over the wooden dance floor.

It has the chest-thumping sound, with discs spun by DJ S-1, the youngest DJ at Hot 107.9. It has intimidating men in black "security" T-shirts, a cover charge and an age limit.

But it's not 21-and-over. It's 16-19.

The Vault, located in a former bank in Baldwinsville that actually has a walk-in vault, is Central New York's newest nightclub exclusively for teens. It opened last month and is gaining in popularity among area high school students.

"They loved the lights," co-owner Lisa Severson said following the opening weekend. "They felt it was just a real club scene. ... I think it will catch on."

Severson said her 15-year-old daughter, Alexzandrea, helped her realize that area teens needed a fun, safe place to hang out on weekends. Some area nightclubs do allow high school students to enter, but the teens have no choice but to mingle with intoxicated adults, she said.

"They just hang all over the younger crowd," Severson said of one such club. "They get out of control with the dancing and the touching."

Severson said she hasn't had any problems like that at The Vault.

Besides the music at the Vault, there are three video games, a pool table, an electronic dart game and a claw crane game. The bar offers candy, snacks, water, soda and energy drinks of all sorts, including Coca Cola's "Vault."

This summer, she and co-owner Gregg Umbenhouer hope to open the club to younger teens on certain weeknights. In a few weeks, they plan to open the club as an after-school hangout as well.

Teens have been instrumental in The Vault's success so far. Severson said her daughter and her friends helped with the club's design and theme. Other Baldwinsville-area teens helped design the clubs' Web sites and helped spread the word about the club.

Their work has been paying off. During the club's second weekend, April 24 and 25, attendance more than doubled to about 100 per night, Severson said. The business will start to become profitable if it can 200 or more teens each night, she said.